Ambigrams and Inversions
by JediShampoo
Summary: Kyouya/Haruhi, with Tamaki/Haruhi in the background. Five years post-series, a fancy party at university: Kyouya thinks he knows what he wants; Haruhi believes she knows what he needs. Please note the mature content warnings inside and read responsibly.


**Title: Ambigrams and Inversions**

**Author: Jedishampoo **

**Pairing:** Kyouya/Haruhi (Tamaki/Haruhi & other pairings in the background)

**Rating:** mature; hetsmut, language, misogyny

**Summary:** Set five years post-series: Kyouya thinks he knows what he wants; Haruhi believes she knows what he needs. About 7000 words.

**Author's Notes:** Gift for my friend minidrag33. This is not my OTP and was therefore tough to write (Tamaki/Haruhi all the way!), but I relished the chance to create in this adorable fandom. Though please be warned: I left a lot of sweetness at the door. Thank you to my dear sharpeslass for the beta!

**Ambigrams and Inversions**

It really wasn't a bad party, despite being held at an all-but-public university. Kyouya had tried the truffle canapés and they were passable. Suzuki had obviously paid through the nose for those and the heart-shaped melons, and for the carver who patiently scooped out the heart-shaped, pink chunks and etched guests' sweethearts' initials on them as if they were souvenirs and not something to be gobbled up moments later by the cooing and giggling recipients.

Suzuki was Jyouto University's chancellor's son, and this was his birthday party. The board of Jyouto University was hoping to add to its burgeoning medical school. They wanted to add a state-of-the-art hospital, as a matter of fact. Thus Kyouya's reason for attending the party in question. He rarely socialized anymore, when it wasn't required. The path he'd chosen made his high-school days of running the host club seem halcyon in hindsight. He and Tamaki hadn't been working; they'd been playing.

Kyouya popped a piece of melon inscribed with the characters for his own name into his mouth. It was surprisingly sweet and juicy for a novelty-melon. He'd already greeted the host-- yes, his father was very well; no, he hadn't brought his girlfriend; no, he didn't need to meet any other cute girls. Yes, he would like a personally-escorted tour of the campus tomorrow to see the proposed site, this lowly one thanks you for your kindness.

Once the war of humble speech was over and the melon was only a sweet memory on his tongue, Kyouya went looking for a drink. Suzuki's bar made an even better impression than his appetizers: the wine was so good that Kyouya drained two glasses before switching to some excellent sake. He was contemplating the pleasures of switching back again versus a sure headache in the morning when he spotted a familiar set of shoulders. They were attached to a familiar head-tilt, and a familiar air of bored female proletarian.

And there, Kyouya felt his own breath catch for a moment as he looked around automatically for someone who could not be here. It was annoying, having emotions that were predictable and yet inescapable.

He could pretend he hadn't seen her. It would be unacceptably cowardly, but talking to her would make his evening a little more interesting than he'd planned. Still, it was better to be overly interested than a coward. He walked up behind her.

"All this social-climbing is sure to help your career, Fujioka-san," he said as he neared. He raised his glass when she turned to stare at him.

"Kyouya-sen-- Kyouya! Hi!" Haruhi's giant brown eyes were as expressive as ever. They evidenced clear surprise, then genuine pleasure, then suspicion. "Wait. Why so formal?"

"To be polite in front of your friends, of course, Haruhi," Kyouya told her, gesturing with an elegant pinky toward the pair of trendily-dressed girls staring at him from over Haruhi's shoulders. She'd been chatting with them when he'd approached.

"Except it wasn't that polite. This is Kurakawa Saniko, and Shinatoro Mariko," Haruhi said, waving first at a plainish girl with brown hair in a blue dress, and then a slightly prettier girl with lighter brown hair, also in a blue dress. Haruhi was in her signature pink. "This is Ootori Kyouya."

The prettier of the -Kos widened her eyes at him. "As in, the Ootori Group?"

Haruhi blew out a pained-sounding sigh while Kyouya nodded at them politely. "Why yes, as a matter of fact."

The girl shot Haruhi a hard and significant stare. Haruhi rolled her eyes and turned her back on her friends. "Hey. Give me a few minutes to catch up, and I'll find you later."

"Oh, fine. Nice to meet you, Ootori-san." The girls walked off amid a cloud of giggling and a few backwards glances at Haruhi.

"All my social climbing is by accident. One of the drawbacks of being a Suou fiancée," Haruhi told him, and drained the glass of fruity-looking liquid she'd been holding. She stared at the syrupy dregs of as if grumpy with them for being gone. "I was invited. I didn't want to come, but my friends begged me to bring them because they thought rich guys would be here. And you had to show up and prove them right. It's annoying. How are you?"

"I'm well. It's good to see you," Kyouya told her. Haruhi looked very fine. She'd let her hair grow a little longer than she'd kept it in high school, and a bit of natural curl flipped at the bottoms. And was that lip-gloss? Being a-- female-- college student suited her, as much as much as her pink dress suited her. It was a fine-quality dress, well-fitted. Kyouya suspected Tamaki's hand in its choosing. He was suddenly more pleased than pained at her familiar presence, and he smiled at her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked with her wide-eyed, direct stare, the one he'd always found rather interesting in a person who professed such boredom with most of the people she met. "Are you still at the Ouran college?

"Of course. Do you wonder why I'm slumming? Let's get another drink and I'll tell you," Kyouya said, directing her towards the bar with two gentle fingers on her elbow.

"I go here, you know," she mumbled, but walked with him.

"Suzuki's father wishes to build a new hospital to make Jyouto University more attractive to medical faculty and students." Kyouya paused to signal the bartender for two glasses of the red wine, the better-than-expected wine that he was planning to drink quite a lot of after all. "My father's board of directors may be interested in an involvement. Jyouto could use the improvement, and the Ootori Group can always use the money."

"It's a good school," Haruhi said, still defensive. She held up her wineglass and swirled the red within it, looking unimpressed by the fine film that coated the glass's sides. She probably missed her idiotic, fruity cocktail.

"An excellent school for pre-law, yes. Only "good" for medicine. It would be a children's hospital, you know."

"That sounds worthy, at least." Haruhi took a sip of her wine, and then raised her expressive eyes at him in a bit of awe. "This is really good. Even I can tell."

"Your tastes have improved."

"Another side-effect of being a Suou fiancée." Her face turned suddenly bleak and she opened her mouth, then shut it, then opened it again, then shut it.

"Yes?"

"Kyouya. Tamaki's in America."

"I know." Kyouya tipped the contents of his wine-glass into his mouth, a healthier gulp than such a fine vintage deserved. It went down smoothly nonetheless.

"Learning languages in Manta Ray. California."

"Spanish and English in Monterey. There's a very good aquarium there."

"I've heard that," she said. Probably she'd been invited multiple times, as had Kyouya-- Tamaki holding out the aquarium as a typically foolish lure. "I miss him."

_Of course she did_. Kyouya found himself becoming slightly irritated with her. "Why didn't you go? He's only going to be there six months; you could have easily won a scholarship for the overseas semester."

Haruhi sighed, stared at her glass, then began gulping it almost as deeply as Kyouya was doing with his own. She made a tiny wine-face at the sudden quantity. "It was too late to apply. If I'd gone, Tamaki would have had to pay for my travel and tuition. And he would have. But I'd like to do _some_ things on my own."

Kyouya signaled the bartender for a couple more glasses. "I received a lengthy e-mail from him when he arrived in America. It was dripping with electronic despondency."

"Huh. He was all smiles when he left. I was annoyed. And he keeps sending me perky, encouraging notes, telling me to do well on my tests."

"I'm sure he was-- and is-- trying very hard." Kyouya wondered if Haruhi was going through denial. Again. In his head he could divine the situation he'd not been present for; watch with his mind's eye as Tamaki smiled at Haruhi at the airport as he said goodbye, despair warring with his desire to make sure Haruhi had her independence. To make sure she was happy, being selfishly common.

Going against his own nature so as not to crowd her, lest she run away. Did she even appreciate that?

"Crap," Haruhi sighed.

Kyouya handed her another glass of wine to replace the empty she held. "And here I'd have thought you'd have grown out of sulking, Haruhi. Don't slump your shoulders. It's unattractive and makes you look shorter."

"I am short," she said, but straightened instantly. Her eyes went wide in that way they had. And slightly accusing. "You never said anything before."

"Well it didn't matter when you were pretending to be a boy,"

Haruhi half-glared at him for a moment or two out of the corners of her eyes. "You drink a lot more than I'd have thought you would."

And there it began, the way it always began: when they weren't talking about Tamaki, the one thing they had in common, they poked at each other, looking for a reaction, or information, or whatever it was that made each others' company most bearable. Interesting. Even exciting.

Kyouya pushed his glasses up to sit just so on the bridge of his nose. "Ah. But you see, this is training. Every good businessman should learn, early on, how to drink and to drink well. Have you said hello to your host?"

"I haven't talked to him yet."

"How rude. He was only a little drunk when I spoke with him."

Haruhi looked around. "Mariko and Saniko have got him. Wow."

Kyouya let his gaze follow the direction of hers, and he saw the –Kos, blue and lighter blue, on either side of the sweaty, pink-cheeked Suzuki. They were finding great amusement in whatever they were doing, which appeared to be holding Suzuki upright. "They really _do_ have him."

"Tag-team. Those tramps. Hee," Haruhi giggled uncharacteristically. Her eyes widened in embarrassment and she put three fingers over her lips in a gesture that was just feminine enough to be attractive without being too silly. Kyouya had always known what Tamaki saw in her. "Wow. This wine is really good."

Kyouya took her elbow in his fingers again. "Why don't we sit down?"

"Good idea." Haruhi let him direct her through the crowd to a couch along the wall. There was a little table in front of the couch; she grinned at him when he took her glass of wine and visibly extended his pinky as he set it on the table. Her grin was so cute that he hardly felt silly doing it.

Sitting side-by-side on the couch, backs to the wall, they had a good view of the entire room. In the few minutes they'd been chatting, the party had become a bit more crowded and rowdy as everyone sampled the liquor and then went back for more. And more.

Kyouya spotted a couple of young men he hadn't seen on his first circuit through the room, mentally comparing them to some photos on file in his head. Connections of connections. He dug his palm pilot out of his pocket and scratched a couple of notes across the glossy screen. If he was in the mood, later, he'd probably introduce himself.

When he looked back at Haruhi, her expression could not quite be classified under _eye-roll_, but definitely counted as _wry_. "What? I told you this was a business engagement for me."

"Nothing." She looked down at her chest and fiddled with some of the pink flowers at the bodice of her dress. "You and Tamaki go to the same school, but I never see you, anymore."

"I see him. When he is in Japan, at least." He and Tamaki didn't share any classes, but sometimes they met for dinner or even smallish parties on the rare weekends Tamaki wasn't off visiting Haruhi.

"I see him, too. He flirts with all the girls in my apartment building." Still she fiddled. Something on the front of her dress was fascinating her, though Kyouya couldn't quite see what it was. Perhaps she was stymied at the slight cleavage the well-cut dress had given her? At least her chest was no longer concave.

Kyouya mentally bit his tongue to keep from mentioning that fact aloud. "Are you jealous?"

"No." She stood a little shakily, chin still planted on her chest. She grabbed her glass of wine. "Hey, excuse me for a minute, would you? I need to find the restroom. And maybe I should get some water."

"Go powder your nose," Kyouya told her. "I'll get the water."

While she was gone Kyouya fetched a couple bottles of water as well as another glass of the red wine-- he might as well make full use of it while he was there. Then he ran into one of the fellows he'd seen earlier, one Fujishiya Tezo, second son of _those Fujishiyas_, and he took just a moment to introduce himself.

It was a few minutes before he returned to the couch and discovered that Haruhi hadn't yet found her way back. He sat and took alternate sips of wine and water and heard a small commotion in the already-noisy room.

"Fujioka! You cutie. I heard you dumped your boyfriend," a loud, lusty voice slurred.

"That's stupid. Let me go." Haruhi sounded calm but annoyed.

Kyouya stood and found a little scene playing out only a few steps away. The other young gentleman he'd tried to identify in his own brain earlier-- one of the Gakuiin family of Kyoto, he believed-- had Haruhi in a sort of half-friendly-hug, half-attempt to rub himself all over her. The grin plastered on his shiny face was wide and sloppy.

"Betcha I'm better in the sack than he was. Smart girl like you, you know it, right? You look hot tonight, you know? Cutie," he repeated.

"Not hardly," Haruhi said, and looked as if she was about to do something unthinkable with her refilled glass of excellent wine. Kyouya stood and called over to her.

"Haruhi. Am I to I take it this overly familiar behavior is unwelcome?"

"Yes. But I can take care of it."

Kyouya ignored her. "You heard her, I believe?" he said to the enthusiastic suitor-groper.

The guy watched Kyouya's approach somewhat blearily. "New date? Sorry, Fujioka-san, didn't know." He released Haruhi and stepped back for a quick bow. "I'm Gakuiin."

"Ootori," Kyouya said with a lovely smile, and nodded. He dropped his arm across Haruhi's shoulders. Why waste time explaining that he was _not_ her date, and that he was in fact rescuing _him_ from Haruhi's unfeminine wrath? Let Gakuiin think that he, Kyouya, was sleeping with her. Improving one's status in the eyes of one's colleagues wasn't all about business acumen. Life and work were the same thing, after all.

"Oh, hell." Gakuiin bowed and backed away. "Excuse me."

"Thanks," Haruhi told him as they sat back on the couch. "But I could have gotten rid of him."

"Used to it, I suppose?" Kyouya asked. The room was warm; he was warm. His arm tingled. That had been fun. Was fun. Overly interesting, as always. "I see you haven't lost your touch."

"I don't do anything, I swear. It's just, in college, they're a lot less polite. And more drunk." As if rejecting that lifestyle, Haruhi pushed away her wine and picked up the untouched bottle of water.

"Remember what I said about good businessmen? The poor boys are just learning now that they'll hardly have any other joy in their puny lives."

"Sounds like the Shadow King is bitter." Kyouya was watching the crowd but he could feel Haruhi's gaze turned up to stare at him. It would be that wide-eyed, direct stare, too. It was too bad he'd never slept with her before she'd become off-limits. It might have been fun.

Life and work, fun and business, exploring one's options. Only Tamaki had ever given Kyouya something for Kyouya. _Her_ boyfriend. Her fun. Truly, she'd always been off-limits for Kyouya.

"No, I'm not at all." Kyouya finished off his wine and decided that he actually felt pretty good. Bitterness belonged to everyone else; puny lives, boring lives, lonely lives. "Are you and Tamaki sleeping together?"

She jerked a little as if startled, but ignored the question. "You miss Tamaki, don't you?"

"Not really."

"You can take your arm off me, now."

_Ah_. No wonder he'd been so warm and tingly; he was still snuggling on her, caressing her bare shoulder at the straps of her dress. Her warm skin made a nice contrast on his fingertips to the little nubbed fabric flowers stitched into the strap. He released her, but it was too late. He couldn't get the question or the idea out of his head: Haruhi and Tamaki, fucking like bunnies.

"Well, are you?"

"Geez, Kyouya. Why do you care?"

"I suppose that answers my question." _Prurience?_ He always sought information. Some information was just more interesting than other information.

"Nnnnn..." she moaned. She was sulking again, but caught him looking sideways at her and straightened against the couch. He noticed that she hadn't asked him to move his thigh from where it rubbed against the side of hers. "We've been engaged for two years…"

"And will be until you finish law school?"

"No, probably undergrad at least. He's got the company to come back to. It's a long time, no matter how you look at it."

Kyouya adjusted his glasses again and turned to look directly at her. It was hot in the room and she had a slight shine of sweat at her temples and below her ears. _Interesting. Exciting_. "I wasn't making any judgments about what you two do when you're alone. Though you should be careful, of course."

"We are. _I_ am. Argh! Why are you making me talk about this?" Haruhi tilted her head back and gulped down half the water in her bottle. Her lack of an Adam's apple was completely evident when her neck was all stretched out like that, slender and feminine. How had anyone, for an instant, believed that Haruhi was a boy? Kyouya believed that most people were stupid, but usually people's gonads knew more than their brains.

"I'm not. I just asked a question."

Haruhi re-capped her bottled water and looked directly at him again, wide eyes deliberately un-calculating. "Don't you have a girlfriend?"

"Yes, for now." Kyouya turned to examine a loud noise in the corner of the room-- Haruhi's tramp friends and their host, screeching in laughter. Suzuki was not long for the party, but then the booze and food and beautiful people had all been provided; parties like this could continue long after their hosts had passed out or found more private pursuits.

"For now. You're so cynical. What's she like?"

"She's suitable in every way that matters." Sachie was rich, educated, and well-bred. She bored him sexually, but his father liked her father. What more was there to say? He wasn't in the mood to talk about Sachie. He hadn't decided if he was going to marry her. Why should he marry or even date if he didn't wish to?

"Do you love her?"

"No. Not really."

"That's too bad." Haruhi sounded sad. Kyouya glanced at her and she was staring down again, this time at her fingers tapping in her lap rather than at her own cleavage. One, two, threefourfive, six, seven, eightnineten pale-pink, painted, short fingernails. The fingernails of an honor student. Fingers that were slim and efficient and that knew all sorts of things. Very basic things that he did not.

Whatever occupied her thoughts in those moments was interrupted by the commotion, which had moved over to stand directly in front of them. Kyouya didn't have to shift his head at all to see the two blue dresses and a black suit in the middle, sweaty face and sloppy grin intact.

"Ha- Ha- Haruhi," Plainer–Ko stutter-giggled over the general background giggling of the other two drunks. "We're going to help Suzuki-chan here back to his room. If we miss you tonight, I'll stop by tomorrow, 'k?

"Go on," Haruhi waved the water-bottle at them. She nodded politely at Suzuki. "I'll probably leave soon."

"You're not join-joining us, Fujioka-san?" Suzuki mumbled. One of his legs wobbled and the other -Ko caught him, giggling.

"Next time, Suzu-chi," Prettier-Ko said, and patted him on the shoulder. "Bye, Haruhi."

"Later." Haruhi downed the rest of her water and shook the empty bottle at Kyouya. "I think I'm done here for the night."

"Next time?" Kyouya asked, finger poised on the bridge of his glasses in a significant pause.

Haruhi rolled her eyes and mumbled something that might have been "_men_," and may have been mumbled in a disgusted tone. Surely she wasn't lumping _him_ in with the rest the idiot male population?

When she didn't respond further, Kyouya gave his glasses one last twitch. "Have you learned martial arts yet, or shall I at least walk you back to your dormitory?"

"Apartment." Haruhi looked up at him tilting her head just the slightest bit, narrowing her eyes. "Are you drunk? Your face is a little flushed."

"Are you afraid of me?"

"No," Haruhi said. Definitive, blunt, as if the idea was ridiculous. She had somehow become _possible, real_ again, as so few people ever had, yet he was no threat whatsoever. "I was just asking."

"No, I'm not drunk." Kyouya had very good locks on his psyche. A few drinks weren't going to break them.

"I'm not, either, but I'm a little tipsy. Uh. I'm glad I ran into you tonight. _Will_ you walk back with me?"

"Of course." They stood. Kyouya didn't touch her until they passed Gakuiin, whereupon he celebrated the occasion by slinging his forearm over her shoulder again. Gakuiin nodded at them with downcast eyes when they passed.

"You can be so funny sometimes. When you want to, Kyouya."

He was funny. She had slightly sticky shoulders, soft skin and that tight dress, and _he_ was funny.

Still, she didn't ask him to remove his arm as they left the Suzuki mansion and walked out into the comfortable fall night. It was not too warm, not too cool, merely perfect for a Saturday-at-university evening out. They were both quiet as they walked the tree-lined sidewalks. The soft sound of music from other parties blended to form a background accompaniment.

"My apartment is only a couple blocks away," Haruhi said, breaking the silence. She grinned up at Kyouya. She was so oblivious to her own feminine power, the strength of her giant, gleaming eyes, her slightly parted lips. Kyouya wondered who'd started it: her, or Tamaki? Had all the flirting with her dorm-mates made her say, _touch me if you like? _

Why hadn't she gone to America? Surely she'd not always been _that_ selfish of her own time and means.

"All right," Kyouya said.

"Is your girlfriend pretty? Tamaki says he's never met her."

"She's exceptionally pretty." A cool breeze ruffled Haruhi's wispy hair over his bare wrist. "A little boring."

"You should find someone who's more exciting to you, then. One thing I'll say for Tamaki is that he's never, ever boring."

"Hmm." Did Haruhi even know how close her candor came to the heart, sometimes? How close she'd always come whenever she chose to examine him, to make him most bearable to her? Except that once: _you won't do it_, she'd said. Oh, wouldn't he have? He hadn't meant to, no, but anything had been possible in those days. Because they'd known nothing.

She turned up the walkway of a large, bricked building, and they climbed the steps to its wood-and-glass doors. Kyouya looked up: the building's architecture had arches and nooks, some bit of style over function. _Decent-looking student housing_, he could report to his father.

Haruhi didn't step out of the circle of his arm, didn't turn and say, _well this is it, I guess, G'night!_ She just tapped a code into the keypad set into the brick next to the door. It clicked open. "Do you want to see?" she asked.

"Why not?"

Did she even have a clue how suggestive that was? Did she know the sensual tilt of her own chin, or the way she'd bumped closer into him every three or four steps? Did she know how easy it would be to break his best friend's heart when he wasn't there to walk her home himself? Kyouya slid his arm from her shoulder to hold the door open for her.

"Down the hall. I'm glad I'm on the first floor. The elevators are really old."

She walked, he followed. Haruhi stopped in front of a door that looked like all the others except for the number on the tiny, bronze plate nailed into its center. Another code punched into a keypad, another click. Another threshold without the expected coy goodnights. Kyouya crossed it behind her.

Haruhi slapped the wall inside and a light blinked on to illuminate a small stove. They stood in a kitchenette. A tiny table and two chairs were shoved against one wall. A partially-open door led off into a darkened room.

"You did say apartments," Kyouya murmured. Not _dormitories_. "Not bad."

"Another side-effect of being a Suou fiancée. Or perk, I guess I should say. It's all mine." Haruhi put her hands on her hips and looked about the kitchenette, turning her upper body slowly from side to side as if stretching.

"The benefit of privacy?"

"You could say that." She stared at him, her eyes an unwavering gleam in the half-dark. "The kitchen lights are burned out, though."

_Déjà vu_. Kyouya wordlessly took hold of her shoulders and turned her, then shoved gently but firmly until her back was pressed against the wall next to the light-switch. She didn't resist or say a word, just stared up at him.

"So. Have you considered cheating on my friend?"

"No, why should I? I love him. He's great in bed, too. Uh. Perfect."

"Hmm." Kyouya shoved his lips against hers and kissed her. When she didn't protest or push him away, only clenched his shoulders and kissed him back, he pressed more closely and slid his tongue between her parted lips. He'd been trying to be rough but she was so casual and unresisting that he slowed down and took his time. _She would. She would_. She would totally break Tamaki's heart, and not know how she did it--

Kyouya kissed her until his heart was thumping in his ears and under her fingertips at his jaw. He pulled away an inch or two to look at her. Her eyes were closed, her lips wet and shining to match the sweat-sheen of her skin, her chest moving up and down visibly with her breaths. Kyouya was more breathless himself than he'd intended to be.

"Is he?" he whispered, pressing forward slightly with his hips.

"Yes," she said, her warm breath puffing against his face. Her hips moved forward, back, forth, outpacing him. The knobbly flowers on her dress rubbed his thighs through the thin fabric of his light suit, scratching uneven lines onto his tender skin. "Um. Hot. Do you want to know how?"

"N-- No." _Maybe_. With every word and every hitch of her breath and her hips the blood rushed more furiously under his skin, tightening his belly and making him feel light-headed, less in control.

No. He knew what he was doing. Testing Haruhi. To shut her up he bent over until he could push his tongue into the soft skin just under her jawline.

Too easy, she was too easy. She released his jaw and laid her palms against his sides under his jacket. Not pushing him away, just touching, the very tips of her fingers lightly exploring his ribs.

"Are you sure about-- _hah!_" Kyouya felt Haruhi's gasp when he slid one hand into the front of her dress. There was not a lot there but the soft flesh under his fingers was all her, no padding, nothing unnatural, there had never been anything unnatural about her. She spoke again, her almost normally-blunt tone softened to a whisper. "Do you want to-- I mean, did you really, then?"

"Does it matter?" It didn't to him, not anymore. He wanted her _now_. Her nipple was hard against his palm, bits of her were digging into his thighs, and her skin tasted like sweat and good perfume. "None of us knew anything then."

"It was so easy. Oh, wow!" Haruhi gasped again when he pressed his erection into her stomach, showing her how much he wanted her. "Um. Not in the kitchen."

Kyouya yanked his hand out of her dress and backed off a step or two, shrugging off his suit-jacket as he did so. He watched Haruhi kick off her shoes and walk to the partially-open door. Just over the threshold she turned and looked back at him. For a moment there was a crease between her brows, a slight downturn in her lips, a glint of something unreadable in her eyes. Guilt?

Kyouya just watched her watching him. He loosened his tie. As if in decision, she straightened her shoulders. _Ah, guilt overcome_. Kyouya dropped his tie and jacket over the back of one of her kitchen-chairs.

Perhaps he was a little drunk, because his own guilt was minimal. Still, it was her job to say _No_, and she'd said _Yes_. Easy. He kissed her first and kicked off his shoes second, then toppled both of them onto the futon spread across the high, tatami-matted floor. Did she leave the damned thing out all day? When Tamaki visited, did they even bother to say _hello_ before they stumbled in here and started grabbing each other everywhere at once?

"Ah!" Kyouya mumbled, realizing that being splayed on top of her slender little body and aching into her felt great, but that simply shoving his hand up her dress and between her thighs-- no matter how much she squirmed-- was not going to get the job done. It also displayed a lack of finesse. He almost didn't care.

"Wait, swee-- Kyouya. Sit up for a second, would you?"

"Yes," Kyouya mumbled and sat up, light-headed again. There was an order to this and he wasn't following it. In the scant light from the door he could see a night-stand, and he removed his glasses and set them on it.

Then he propped himself on his hands over her. She was close enough that she was only a little blurry. He groped behind her for the fastening to her dress, and she arched her back to help as he unzipped her, pressing her thigh between his legs and rubbing it against his cock until it throbbed and ached, the protruding fabric flowers each an acute contact of their own on his hot skin.

"Ta-- Uh, Tamaki bought me this dress…" she said. Strangely, it sounded like a question. Guilt again?

"I know. _Ah_. I can tell," Kyouya told her.

"Oh. Okay." She sounded… relieved?

Kyouya hooked his index fingers under the straps of her dress and smoothed them down her arms, over her fingers, down her stomach. She was braless underneath. Slender, tender, all female. _He'd_ never been deluded, not for a minute. She wriggled, helping him yank the pink dress down over her pale hips.

When she lay back and stretched out, mostly naked, she stared at the ceiling as if embarrassed, her eyes huge in the dark. She whispered something that sounded like _heywhite. Hey why? Yay wine? A while? _

Kyouya didn't care. He leaned down to kiss her breastbone, and there was sweat and perfume there and her tiny breasts were adorable, not his, maybe, but adorable. He didn't even unbutton his shirt, just pulled it over his head and kissed her again, losing thought in the feel of her warm, wet little mouth and tongue and her moans humming against his lips.

Her hands on his back were half-hesitant, half-sure, her little nails, one, two, threefourfive, six, seven, eightnineten of them digging into his shoulder-blades when he slid his palm down her belly and under the hem of her silky panties.

"Ah!" Haruhi gasped. "You always. Took care of us, too."

"I suppose. Yes," Kyouya said, wondering what she was talking about. She was so tight and wet around his finger. He curled it up inside her, felt her muscles clench everywhere she touched him.

"In your own way."

"Mmm." Why was she talking to him? Rationalization of some kind? He hooked her panties down over her ass and past her thighs. She did a little acrobatic knee-bend, kicking them away while he unbuttoned his pants to get them off before he came inside them instead of her. She clenched her knees against his ribs on either side and he loved how she didn't stare at the ceiling like _get on with it_ but grabbed his hips and rubbed his skin hard and _screw it_, having his pants at his knees was fine--

Haruhi was giggling. "You're not wearing underwear."

Still talking, too. "You have discovered my secret," he said, and shoved her knees to her chest and shoved his cock inside and she was all slick and clenchy and not his and _God_, it had been too long since he'd been with someone who kept his dick hard and who didn't make him want to fall asleep mid-fuck and who _knew_ him.

Haruhi was gasping and he was gasping and he just rocked in and out and she was too tiny and too skinny and tight and perfect: Kyouya had gotten used to pretending that he was fucking other people. Yes, he'd wanted to, five years ago. He'd wanted to screw her into the mattress in Nekozawa's guestroom and show her that she was a girl and he was not and that naivete and bravado were not her weapons but that the grip of her cunt was, and that she'd made his life more interesting and more difficult by being there.

"That's… That's…" she moaned, and he moaned back into her sweaty hair, breathing perfume that he'd not chosen for her but would have. Maybe he was grabbing her knees a little too hard as he pounded into her but they were slippery with sweat and he was going to lose his grip if he didn't.

So he dug his toes into the bamboo mat for purchase and she yanked his hair with both hands, pulling his head up and staring right at him with her huge eyes and he shoved into her so hard and fast that his testicles slapped against her little ass and she pulled his hair harder and he gasp-laughed into her mouth. Pain for pain; it was only fair.

There was no way he could pretend she was anyone else. And he'd wanted to screw Tamaki's mother, too, _God_, she'd looked just like him and _fuck_, he was going to come; every inch of him was stretched thin and throbbing, sensitive to the point of hurting, his gut and his balls tensed and tight, even his ears and lips as Haruhi gasped short, sharp _ahs_ into them. It was terrible and exquisite to screw someone who couldn't pretend to save her life. Couldn't she just pretend she wasn't enjoying it?

He let go one of her knees to jam his hand between them, down between her thighs where their mingled sweat stung a cut on his finger and _there_, her whole body jerked again.

"Ah!" Kyouya coughed, feeling every movement everywhere. Why didn't she pretend she wasn't enjoying it? The tiny world was her skin and his, and he almost didn't know where he stood, where he was going. "So… do you-- ah-- love me?"

"_Ungh--_ N… No," she moaned at him, high-pitched and tight like the rush of blood through his entire body--

"Ah. Hah, I'm--" he said, and his ass seized up and shot forward and over the edge, and his muscles went sluggish all at once but he managed to rock in a couple more thrusts. Better in than out, she was built for it… "I'm. Ah!"

In his mind's eye he could see the picture even as he did and felt it, him poised above her for a few heart-stopping seconds before release; then the pounding of his blood resumed and flowed and he could breathe. Kyouya flopped down on top of her and shoved his face into the pillow while his body untwanged. He didn't want to look at her. He felt her fingers, all ten of them, combing through his hair in slow strokes.

"I'm so sorry," Haruhi whispered after a minute or so and kissed his forehead.

"Why are you sorry now?" Kyouya asked, idly, when he had breath and strength again to push himself up and off her. He rolled onto his back and arched his hips, pulling his pants up and fastening them over his sticky stomach. His shirt was somewhere around here. She'd failed the test, and he was breathless and his chest ached and he wanted to find his shirt.

"I'm sorry that I don't love you," Haruhi whispered from somewhere in the blurry dark behind him. "I'm sorry that you're unhappy."

"Hmm." Kyouya found his glasses first and slid them on, listening to her steady breathing as it slowed. The room focused a little. He had to lean half-over her to grab his shirt from where it was crumpled above her head, white against the white sheets. She was staring at the ceiling but caught his eye when he glanced at her. "I can take care of myself, " he told her.

"Yes," she said, sounding frustratingly unconvinced.

Kyouya wished he'd brought a bottle of water with him. His throat was dry. Maybe Haruhi had one in her refrigerator. He crawled to the door and climbed out of the room.

The fridge was sparsely stocked with cheap, easy food. Common food. Was she determined to be selfishly common forever? At least she had a couple bottles of water. Kyouya grabbed one and unscrewed the top with a single, hard twist and guzzled half of it in one go. It was so cold that he soon had a tight headache to match the tightness under his breastbone.

The door creaked behind him and Haruhi climbed out. She scraped out the chair that didn't have Kyouya's jacket and tie draped over it and plopped down with a sigh. She'd scrambled into an old t-shirt and shorts and looked so like her old, comfortable self that Kyouya became unguarded for a moment.

"So now I have more than one secret to keep from Tamaki," he said to her. But the droop and shine of her eyes was so pitying that his comfort edged into comfortable anger. "Though I do owe him enough to hurt him now if it protects him, ultimately."

"I'll tell him," Haruhi said. She tapped her fingers on the table. "He won't be completely… happy about it. But he'll understand."

Kyouya stared at her, unable to move for a moment. The comfortable anger edged into a much more uncomfortable uncertainty. "Understand that you have considered cheating on him?" he said, echoing the words he'd said to her earlier in this very room.

"No. I do love him," Haruhi said in a low voice. She propped her elbow on the table and leaned her chin into her hand. "And he cares about you. So he'll know."

"Know what?" Uncertainty, suspicion; Kyouya found none of it comfortable. He waited for her answer.

"I'm sorry. I thought you'd know," she said.

Kyouya stared at her for another moment or two or three or five. Her words earlier… Nearly everything she'd said. How had he been so blind? She'd pitied him.

Guile from the guileless. He supposed someone in that relationship needed it. Absolute honesty at all times was dangerous. It was painful.

"Dammit," he spat. He shoved his feet into his shoes and grabbed his jacket and tie and yanked open the door and stomped out.

"Kyouya-- wait!" Haruhi called behind him.

"Good night, Haruhi." Another door, another click behind him.

He walked. The comfortable night was a little too hot after all. He wished he didn't smell like her, he wished he didn't know what her perfume tasted like, he wished he'd been a coward. Tomorrow, when Suzuki asked him in that humbly coy way that men had if he'd had a good night talking with Fujioka-san, Kyouya would smile in the same humbly coy way and say yes and he'd wish inside that he hadn't. But life and business were too much the same thing.

He wished that he didn't know that Tamaki _would_ understand. Dammit.

***

**End.** _Thank you for reading! Concrit, comments, all are appreciated very much._

* Note: Title from my roomie sharpeslass. It has something to do with two people looking at the same work/word and seeing completely different things in it. Awesome!


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